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Quotes About Rivers

He gave us the lakes for our Northern boundary, and the rivers stretching to the seas upon whose waters floats our commerce to the nations of the world; while man has done all that can be done by science to bind us together.
~ John Brough
St. Louis sprawls where mighty rivers meet - as broad as Philadelphia, but three stories high instead of two, with wider streets and dirtier atmosphere, over the dull-brown of wide, calm rivers. The city overflows into the valleys of Illinois and lies there, writhing under its grimy cloud.
~ W. E. B. Du Bois
Hippos kill more people in Africa annually than any other wild animal.
~ George Ayittey
Something killed them. Long ago. I don't know exactly what. Some great cataclysm of the earth, that buried whole cities in a matter of days. It sank the coast, drowning harbour towns, and changed the courses of rivers. It wiped out the dragons, and I think it killed the Elderlings as well.
~ Robin Hobb
The dominions of kings are limited either by mountains or rivers, or a change of manners, or an alteration of language
~ Alexandre Dumas
But here, in the tide country, transformation is the rule of life: rivers stray from week to week, and islands are made and unmade in days. In other places forests take centuries, even millennia, to regenerate; but mangroves can recolonize a denuded island in ten to fifteen years. Could it be the very rhythms of the earth were quickened here so that they unfolded at an accelerated pace?
~ Amitav Ghosh
The elves knew the true names of these rivers,' said Skifr, who'd made a kind of bed among the cargo to drape herself on. 'We call them Divine and Denied because those are as close as our clumsy human tongues can come.
~ Joe Abercrombie
Great structures or basic physical attributes—location along rivers, oceans, trade routes, attractive green space, or even freeway interchanges—can help start a great city, or aid in its growth, but cannot sustain its long-term success. In the end, a great city relies on those things that engender for its citizens a peculiar and strong attachment, sentiments that separate one specific place from others.52
~ Joel Kotkin
Ah, when, within our narrow chamber The lamp with friendly lustre glows, Flames in the breast each faded ember, And in the heart, itself that knows. Then Hope again lends sweet assistance, And Reason then resumes her speech: One yearns, the rivers of existence, The very founts of Life, to reach.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Writing is a strong easement for perplexity. My life is a map, spread out with all the rivers and hills showing.
~ Emily Carr
Songs, stories are beyond value; they are the memory and wisdom of a people, the particular individual rivers of the sea of life which constitutes us all.
~ Rudy Wiebe
Let him find no rest but be fathered and found, I prayed in the crouching room, by his blind bed, In the muted house, one minute before Noon, and night, and light. The rivers of the dead Veined his poor hand I held, and I saw Through his faded eyes to the roots of the sea. Go calm to your crucifixed hill, I told The air that drew away from him.
~ Dylan Thomas
People at Stettin drop things into boats out of overhanging warehouses. At least, our cousins do, but aren't particularly rich. The town isn't interesting, except for a clock that rolls its eyes, and the view of the Oder, which truly is something special. Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, you would love the Oder! The river, or rather rivers—there seem to be dozens of them—are intense blue, and the plain they run through an intensest green.
~ E.M. Forster
An angler is a man who spends rainy days sitting around on the muddy banks of rivers doing nothing because his wife won't let him do it at home.
~ Anonymous
Our public lands are one of our state's greatest gifts - from the San Gabriel Mountains, to the Central Coast, and through Northwestern California's forests and rivers.
~ Alex Padilla
I am associated with Namami Goda Foundation, and I believe rivers are the pulse of our country.
~ Shankar Mahadevan
Fiction can serve in a non-threatening way to open minds and, I hope, hearts to the Word of God.
~ Francine Rivers
Dams have harmed our wildlife and made rivers less useful for recreation.
~ Stephen Ambrose
The thing about the oceans is there is the benefit of water clarity. You can see what's going on there, but a lot of fresh water is murky. You just can't see what's there and I think, for that reason, rivers haven't featured so much on wildlife TV.
~ Jeremy Wade
I want adventure in my life. I want to do things I haven't done before. These Hollywood people are so careful of their image and looking right, but there's a wildness when I come into the photographs. I just want to wade through rivers, climb mountains.
~ Juergen Teller
What is true about a person? Would I change in the same way the river changes color but still be the same person?... And then I realized it was the first time I could see the power of the wind. I couldn't see the wind itself, but I could see it carried water that filled the rivers and shaped the countryside.
~ Amy Tan
The day we cease to take nourishment from the underground rivers of the psyche, we feel life is empty. We only become aware of alienation when neurosis sets in as the symptom of its existence.
~ Anais Nin
To me, a forest is just a bunch of trees, but lakes and rivers are alive. Water is to the land what blood is to the body.
~ Sam Torode
The lesson in running brooks is that motion is a great purifier and health-producer. When the brook ceases to run, it soon stagnates. It keeps in touch with the great vital currents when it is in motion, and unites with other brooks to help make the river. In motion it soon leaves all mud and sediment behind. Do not proper work and the exercise of will power have the same effect upon our lives?
~ John Burroughs